No doubt the choice of the site was partly determined by the convenience of the Itchen. On its breast we see successively the canoes and coracles of the Britons, the galleys of the Romans, and the royal ships of the Saxons and Danes, with their many oars, pictured sails, and formidable figure-heads. In the time of the Normans it became more crowded, and without it the Cathedral could not have been built, as the stone came from quarries in the Isle of Wight. Even Wykeham obtained materials from this source, and the river must have presented a busy scene in the palmy days of the fair, when merchandise was arriving from distant shores. The river was afterwards disused, obstructed apparently by the construction of mills, for when the city was in a dilapidated condition in Henry VIII.’s time, the Mayor and Corporation suggested that the mills should be “pulled up, so that barges might come to the city as formerly.” In recent times a canal has been made, called “the navigable Itchen,” a name which, as we look at its silent and deserted course, seems to have a sound of mockery. Chilcombe is a large parish, and reaches nearly into Winchester. Cynegils in the seventh century gave it to the monastery. But on the high ground above Chilcombe Lodge, the present parsonage, was lately found a curiosity which carries back our retrospect far beyond all such modern history. In sinking a well an aërolite was discovered imbedded forty feet in the chalk! Can we imagine the time when this bolt fell hissing into the sea, and lodged upon some of the shellfish, whose remains formed these white rocks? The “everlasting” hills did not then exist, and the most important inhabitants of the earth were huge and hideous lizards. Does the thought occur to us that in the cycles of ages the time may return “When all the bloomy flush of life is fled”?-- if it does let us banish it. Crossing Soke Bridge and passing Water Lane I came, on the same side, to St. John’s Street. Close to this, on the slope of St. Giles’ hill was the original school where Alfred was instructed. We find, in the Close Rolls, King John ordered William of Cornhill, to make one “Jeffery” attend school at Winchester, and provide him with necessaries for the purpose. [Sidenote: St. John’s.] [Illustration: St John’s from a Cottage Garden]